Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/94

84 taken as figurative and emblematic, as is appropriate to a state of glory of whose nature and details the heart of man cannot conceive, but that they are to be understood, as they are taught, in the strictest literality.

The Vedas are undoubtedly the oldest writings in the world, with the exception of the Pentateuch. Colebrook supposes that they were compiled in the fourteenth century before Christ. Sir William Jones assigns them to the sixteenth century. They are certainly not less than three thousand years old. Veda is from the Sanscrit root vid, to know, the Veda being considered the fountain of all knowledge, human and divine. A Veda, in its strict sense, is simply a Sanhita, or collection of hymns. There are three Vedas, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur Veda, and the Sama-Veda. The fourth, the Atharva Veda, is of more modern date and doubtful authority. The Hindoos hold that the Vedas are coeval with creation. As to their several contents, the Rig-Veda consists of prayers and hymns to various deities; the Yajur Veda, of ordinances about sacrifices and other religious rites; the Sama-Veda is made up of various lyrical pieces, and the Atharva Veda chiefly of incantations against enemies.

The Rig-Veda is the oldest and most authentic of all, and many scholars consider that from it the others were formed. The Hindoo writers attach to each Veda a class of compositions, chiefly liturgical and legendary, called Brahmanas, and they have besides a sort of expository literature, metaphysical and mystical, called Upanishads. They have also an immense body of Vedic literature, including philology, commentaries, Sutras or aphorisms, etc., the study of which would form occupation for a long and laborious life. The remote antiquity of the Vedas is indicated, among other reasons, by the entire absence of most of the modern doctrines of Hindooism, such as the worship of the Triad, the names of the modern deities, the doctrines of transmigration, caste, incarnations, suttee, etc., which are now the cardinal points of Hindooism, and the personified Triad of divine attributes, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, in their capacities of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer,